6/4/2008 - Swerve

1 kings.c.22.v.52b. ...and in the way of Jereboam the son of Nebat, who made Isreal to sin...

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There is almost no sin which vexes the Spirit of the living God in the way that the sin of idolatry does. St. Paul teaches in Romans.c.1.v.21-25...for although they knew God they did not honour Him as God or give thanks to Him but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator Who is blessed forever!....
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So what was the great sin of Jereboam the son of Nebat wherewith he made Isreal to sin? within the 1st hundred years of the monarchy there was a schism and Isreal was divided between Judah in the north with Reheboam as king and the rest of Isreal in the south who took Jereboam to be king.
Jereboam's problem was that the centre of worship for all Jews was in Jerusalem the capital of Judah, so all Isreal would travel to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice and worship at the temple of God there and he was afraid, in so doing the hearts of the people would turn back to the house of David and he would be deposed and killed. Jereboam's solution to this was to build shrines one at Bethel and one at Dan, and he made golden calves at each and proclaimed to the people of Isreal "behold o Isreal, these are the gods who brought you up out of the land of Isreal."
This was a huge swerve away from worshipping the one true and living God and he took Isreal with him. God never let Isreal forget this sin and faithfully it is recorded again and again in the history and chronicles of the kings of Isreal....the sin of Jereboam the son of Nebat who made Isreal to sin, and eventually it was this sin which caused the Jews to be carried off captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzer.
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I cannot trace the exact time or place within the 1st century of the church that a decision was made to set up the eucharist as the central focus of worship by the people of God, there is a dearth of written evidence of the history and doings of the apostolic church between the 28th chapter of the acts of the apostles [which ends rather abruptly] and the sudden appearance of the church fathers [so called] and apologists at the turn of the 1st century teaching sacraments and an episcopal clergy of priests and bishops to administer them. There must somewhere be a written account stashed away in some vault somewhere recording the decision.
The elevation of the eucharist as the central focus of worship is a huge swerve away from worshipping the one true and living God as great as that of Jereboam's golden calves and is idolatry.
There is no doubt whatever in my mind that this was the true cause of God withdrawing the manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit with His gifts and ministrations from the church.
I say manifest Presence because God does not withdraw His Presence, but this I assure you the Holy Spirit will never bear witness to a falsehood. He has however always borne witness to His word, when it is believed in, down through the long years of church history.